The world was seldom ever what it seemed to be, and even less frequently was it kind. 

Queen Rose learned this by the time she came of age and her elder sister was found dead in a prison cell after having run off with the gardener. She learned this when she took the throne and found a scorpion in her bed that very night. Just as she had almost begun to forget, she was reminded yet again by a young man who wore an immortal rose from her garden pinned to his jacket. The memory of the piercing look in his eyes as he took a blade to the chest for her before promptly bursting into flames found itself etched in the backs of her eyelids.

The path was illuminated in moonlight through the grate above. Rose's ankles wobbled under the weight of the inhuman beast whom she had slung over her shoulder. His flesh was scolding hot. He burned with flames made of shadow, but she did not waver as she secretly longed to. 

"Are you sure the fire doesn't hurt?" She asked through her chattering teeth. He gave a huff and rolled his shining, yellow eyes.

"I wouldn’t have led you here otherwise, your majesty."

She nodded back, and for a moment she felt silly for having ever feared the creature who had saved her life. As they trudged through the sewers together, Rose shook at the choir of unholy screams that raptured from above. The screams of her people in peril. The people whom she was sworn to protect. She thumbed nervously at the necklace the Viscountess had given her with a single request: return it to her child.

Rose's stomach sank as she tried to focus on her surroundings rather than what had become of her lady-in-waiting and long-time friend. She could nearly hear her childhood nanny's voice in the back of her mind telling her that it was unbecoming of royalty to cry. It took her a moment of fighting the tears welling up to realize that they had been going in the wrong direction -- or else she had been horribly turned around.

"This is supposed to take us to the docks?" She knew she was misdirecting her rage as soon as the angry words left her lips.

"You wanted to go to the docks, your majesty?"

"Where did you think we were going?" She dropped the hulking thing into the sludge with the wind he knocked out of her. She was so tired of being angry and afraid. It was as if that was all she knew how to be anymore. 

Her rescuer gripped the still-bleeding wound in his side. He let out a low groan, but before he had the chance to explain himself a metal shuffling sounded throughout the tunnel followed by shouting.

Without hesitation, Rose hoisted the twisted thing back up and slung him over her shoulder once again. 

"I don't suppose that would be more of Captain Thatcher's men?" She watched as the flames erupting from his head flared for a moment before the pair launched themselves forward. Even wounded, Rose couldn't tell if she was dragging the monster or if he was dragging her. 

The stench of the sloshing sewer juices that danced in her nostrils was no longer a concern. She couldn’t feel anything over the pounding of her own heart. She had become numb from the neck down and unbearably aware of the faint scent of her companion's blood. It felt like no matter how far she ran the sterile spire prison she called home was ever-looming over her shoulder. The familiar pull of fear crawled up her spine. 

All too quickly, Rose was hauled up and through a manhole by her shadowy helper. Her head spun as she was quickly greeted by the entrance to her rose garden. The same garden the creature had shown her a flower from earlier that evening when he was just a man, and her heart had been fluttering for an entirely different reason. 

The sole survivor of the Northern Invasion had weathered tribulations and perils just to warn her. Just to save her only for it to all end like this. Rose knew she had done far too little for the people, that she was a failure as a ruler and a person, but she had never been so confronted with her own willful ignorance as she had been tonight. Tonight, when the music of the banquet had been substituted with the choirs of the aristocrats’ coup.

"Your highness." He shook her back to her senses with a look.

"Why are we here?" Rose felt that she wasn't anywhere physically anymore. She had a vague fantasy of returning the Viscountess's necklace to her home only to find her long-time friend safe and sound.

"Stay with me." His deep voice cut through her thoughts.

"Pardon?" She could feel him gesture to the wound on her head. She touched it lightly only to gasp with surprise when her hand had come back bloodied. 

"The people adore you. Once you tell them what has happened, not even the dimmest swordsman will think to follow Errington." She knew he was right. So many of her personal, honor-bound knights had already given their lives to stop their brothers and sisters in arms tonight. He was only wrong about the reasons behind it.

"The people would be better off without me." Rose couldn't bring herself to make eye contact. Perhaps she had made her own bed.

"How could you say that?" He smoldered. Rose, for the first time in ages, found herself gobsmacked. She felt like a moth as she was drawn into his glowing eyes. To her surprise, she found herself touched by his pained expression. His eyes were so full of both wisdom and humanity even through the yellow light they emitted. "You had this rose enchanted for each member of my home," he pulled the perfectly bloomed rose from what was left of the pocket of his tattered coat, "you know, my sister had used hers to buy her own house,” he paused as his ghostly face twitched with consideration, “I had a friend who paid off his debts and lived comfortably away from the mines afterward. He might even still be alive somewhere." He stroked the rose with his thumb. His flames seemed only concerned with burning his flesh but licked the flower as if hungry for more.

"It was nothing. I--"

"It was everything. For the first time, someone in our government saw us. You cared. You gave us hope that things would get better. How dare you."

"You don't understand--" 

"I don't plan to. Go on. Go to the docks if you want. I'll hold off anyone who tries to follow you." He turned his back on her. 

"You never told me your name."

"Denu."

Denu sat on the side of the fountain, still staring at the fist the queen had closed around the small, delicate flower. Just as she had done the day they had met all those years ago. He had felt it had been a promise before, to protect and respect those who made up the backbone of the nation. He began to question if he had made that up himself.

He had thought he fell in love with her the day she first gave him that flower. The flower he couldn't find the courage to sell. It was only after his family had been slaughtered by the mad guard captain and he had fought his way just to be where he was now, that he knew he had only loved the idea of a kind-hearted ruler. That his father had been right about no upper class-person giving a single damn about how any of them got along. He had this curse to prove it. His flesh itself seemed to move with the shadows of the night, ripping and pulling itself like he had been fed to the fires the guard captain had set in the mines that fateful day. It was almost as though he could evaporate into nothingness at any moment. Tonight had not been the first night he felt he had been running from Thatcher. It had only been the first time since he was cursed that it was not in his nightmares.

Denu moved his hand to crush the flower: to destroy the ever-looming lie of being valued and cared for. To destroy the lie he had been fed of hero-kings and benevolent rulers, but as he flexed his knuckles to do so all that came to mind was his sister's gentle smile when she had come home to give her family the good news that her first child would be running around a brand new house -- a luxury his family had not known for generations.

"Well, well. If it isn't the little bastard from the mines. I've been meaning to pay you back for quite some time now." The guard captain strode up to Denu leisurely, running a hand over the scar marring his nearly-perfect face.

Denu, flower in hand, jumped to his feet with a growl. He gave a hard sniff to sense if the queen had gotten far enough away, but all he could smell was the burning of the castle and the ever-present smell of those infernal roses.

"Oh, this is precious," Captain Thatcher nodded to the garden with a chuckle, "our girl’s in there, right?" 

Denu let himself fade into the darkness of the courtyard and backed himself up to the garden's gate. From his peripheral vision, he could see servants and nobles alike climb the castle walls to escape. Citizens pulled survivors to safety. Denu's attention was drawn away by the dull side of a sword pressed to his neck.

"You should be more concerned about yourself." Thatcher sneered as he lifted his sword to chop down on Denu’s throat. 

Denu was bigger now, stronger even, so why did he feel that he was the same helpless kid? What was holding him back? The memory of his father telling him to run as gnashing, beastly jaws tore him apart. He felt so utterly frozen, and for a split second, his fear reminded him of the queen’s inaction as he found himself regretting not running for the docks with her. Struck by his rage and grief, Denu let out an ear-splitting yell as the guard captain’s blade found its home in the crook of his neck. Thatcher cackled as he attempted to dislodge his sword as if it were a game to him.

“Well, that worked better than expected.” He laughed. 

There was a shrill shriek from across the courtyard as a maid fled one of Thatcher's invaders. Denu found himself snapped from his trance and grabbed the captain’s blade. The flames tearing at his flesh engulfed the sword, until it heated into a low glow, and burnt the captain’s hand. Thatcher released the sword with a twisted grin as Denu lifted him with an enormous arm and threw him like a doll across the courtyard and into the decorative spout of a fountain, crushing the structure under the force. Several men turned from their slaughter to rush the beastly-Denu who let out another yell as he dashed toward the palace wall as if he could tear down all the corruption and bullshit with his hands alone. 

“Don’t play with your food.” Errington strolled over, unamused and wiping his hands with his handkerchief. 

Denu found himself enthralled once again, as Thatcher rose from the fountain with a crazed cackle. His previous green eye shined a slitted gold that reminded Denu of the night that monster killed everyone he’d ever loved. Errington smirked at Denu.

“Guards, quickly! This monster murdered the queen!” Errington declared loudly. Causing all the chaos to freeze as the castle continued to burn.

Denu hesitated. In his shock, Thatcher seized the moment and launched forward. His hand sparked as his magic transformed and contorted it into a solid mass of a claw that twisted and formed together like a blade which he drove into Denu's gut without hesitation.

"You should've died back in the mines." He whispered in the place Denu's ear should be.

Denu could feel his entire body shrink to its human size as he fell to the ground. It was only then that he realized that he had been clutching the rose the entire time. Crumpled and broken, not unlike himself, the flower swiftly wilted and turned to ash. Denu knew then that he was not ready to let go, not of a great many things. Even if he was the only one with the sense to try and right them.

Just then, there was a rustle from the garden. As Denu could feel his consciousness fading, it was like a tornado had been let loose on the castle grounds as every shrub, tree, and plant in the vicinity shook as though filled with life.

A single vine burst from the nearest rosebush and coiled around Thatcher's cursed hand so quickly that Denu nearly missed it being ripped clean off his body.

The smell was putrid as though Thatcher had been rotted for years. He let out a vile, nearly inhuman scream as both he and Denu turned to see the queen herself emerging from the garden looking nearly as inhuman as Thatcher or himself. Entangled in thorn-covered vines that seemed they were an extension of her own body, she floated above the garden’s gate. Her eyes glowed a mysterious green. With a flick of her wrist, the vines overtook the garden gate like an overwhelming tsunami that destroyed a large portion of the castle wall as it went.

Petals danced through the air in such a way it reminded Denu of the snowy mountains of his home. He gripped his wound and felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace.

“Who killed the queen?” She asked with an aetherial chime behind her voice, now in full sight of who had previously been festival-goers and palace escapees from behind the broken wall.

The crowd of citizens was thrown into yet another uproar. Several fully grown men fainted at the horrific sight. Denu realized, at that moment, that they didn't see things as he did. To them, a monster has just attacked their guard captain and a duke.

A vine reached out from the garden towards Denu which snaked its way under his shoulder and attempted to help him to his feet. However, his legs were mush beneath him and he crashed to the ground once again.

As if she were descending from her rightful throne, Queen Rose gently landed before Denu, lifted him with thicker, thorn-less vines, and pressed several large leaves into his chest which shook once she removed her hand. Her eyes stopped glowing as she gave him a small, sad smile.

"That should stop the bleeding for now."

Denu stood agape. He had so many questions. Yet his mouth was unable to grasp them all at once and he let out a fumbled stutter.

"Thank you." He finally managed quietly. "I didn't think…" There had been so much.

"That I could handle myself?" She asked.

"That you would come back."

"We've both been wrong, about a great many things." She said almost to herself. 

"Witch!" Someone shouted. Denu looked for Duke Errington or Thatcher. However, he soon realized the accusation had not come from them at all, but from the citizens themselves.

Queen Rose stumbled back as it seemed Thatcher's men, the guards, and her people had gathered and turned on them all at once. The Duke folded his arms behind himself and gave a smug smirk.

"Do you think we can still make it to the docks?" Denu asked.

Rose gave him a nod and lifted them both into the air with her vines and built a wall of thorns in between them and the ravenous crowd. The vines thrusted them forward past the garden and onto the stone seawall where a single rowboat sat before them; welcoming them in. The two made a mad rush for the boat, each pulling the other along as they could feel the fire engulfing the garden at their backs.

"I knew this day would come." Rose sighed.

Denu pushed them off from the dock, the fires of the castle still blazing in the distance as they drifted out to sea. 

"So what now?" He asked as he began to row. She shrugged and looked down thoughtfully at the locket wrapped around her wrist. She smiled at him almost wistfully.

"Stay with me."